COMPARATIVE RESEARCH OF BLENDS FROG-WOMAN AND TOAD-WOMAN IN RUSSIAN AND ENGLISH FOLKTALES

The metaphorical perception of reality can be rightfully called one of the most ancient ways of comprehending the world. The juxtaposition of several phenomena inevitably leads to the formation of new terms and concepts. The same process can be found in the fairytale discourse. National folktales represent the way of interpreting reality by means of juxtaposing peculiarities of the animal world with the life of the society. The decryption of the metaphoric context with the help of the conceptual integration theory by G. Fauconnier and M. Turner reveals national cultural values concealed in Russian and English folktales. The aim of the research is to illustrate the correlation between fantasy, reality and cultural values in Russian and English folktales by describing the process of yielding two blends frog-woman and toad-woman correspondingly. For this analysis the structures of the input spaces woman, frog and toad are introduced. The comparative study of the integration process between the anthropomorphic and zoomorphic input spaces shows that in national folktales we can still find social and cultural forms of life, as well as rituals and customs that existed in ancient times. But for many centuries they have been metaphorically modified and lost their real essence.